News for the Wii U and 3DS: Their online services will shut down next year

[Shiny Gems]

Yep, it is true. They will shut down in early April. If you had plans to use the two systems’ online features, make sure to use them to the fullest now.

[Salamander]

It's worth noting that the attached page says you will continue to be able to download game updates or redownload purchased software "for the foreseeable future".  Additionally, Pokémon Bank specifically is noted as continuing to work as normal.

[Dreadknux]

Yeah looks like Pokémon is safe... for now.

End of an era though, truly. I'm finding the odd moment to go back and play a few 3DS games and it'll be sad to see the online cut off. I guess nobody's really using it now anyway? I will be gutted about not getting all of the Nintendo Badge Arcade badges (although I guess that was always an impossible mission anyway).

[Salamander]

I'm one of those who, right before the shut-off, bought up a bunch of 3DS games I never got around to playing before the first time around; and I've been steadily going through those.  (They were almost entirely long Atlus RPGs...)  Once I wrap that up, I'm planning on replaying some 3/DS games I remember being good times, too - more RPGs, obscure titles like the Denpa Men trilogy, maybe I'll give Infinite Space another whirl and try and finish it this time.  But I never really used the3DS's online features outside of the eShop, save for a few enjoyable forays into the multiplayer of Steel Diver, of all things.  It's a shame for those who enjoyed them, but at the same time, it's probably very much true that the purchasing and playing audience on the 3DS has dwindled big-time.  The Switch cannibalised the 3DS audience from the moment it came out.

I think things will be different for the Switch generation, though.  Nintendo has been pretty serious about unifying its services.

[ZinogreVolt]

Fan servers such as Pretendo have been making good development for a long time, so there hopefully won't be a drastic period of time where the games' online features are entirely inaccessible. It sucks that you have to use Homebrew and whatnot to start with, but Wiimfi has been hard carrying the Wii for a long time and in basic functionality it's indistinguishable from the old Nintendo servers. Mario Kart Wii's competitive scene and some fringe Smash Bros groups owe a lot to its existence. Honestly I'm surprised the Wii U and 3DS servers lasted as long as they did with how quick they were to shut down the Wii and DS's online services. I don't play anything on them anymore but some game communities are about to get hit pretty hard by this. As I understand it, games like vanilla Mario Kart 8, Mario Kart 7, and Smash 4 are all still pretty popular. Hopefully smaller communities won't have too much trouble transferring over to fan-run servers.

[Shiny Gems]

My thoughts are that this is the end of an era. Not that the Wii J was particularly great, but yeah, a lot of things will soon be gone. I personally like Ultimate better, but I will miss fighting on Smash 4’s online, which was better than Ultimate’s to me.